Job Offers Ethereal and Jetpacks Errant
by Quillon42
Summary: At the climax to the miniseries misery of Avengers v. X-Men, Scott Summers is offered an alternative to his trouncing defeat by the lady he has loved more than anyone in the entirety of his existence. A would-be savior is also sent (jet)packing in the course of all this.


JOB OFFERS ETHEREAL AND JETPACKS ERRANT

By Quillon42

SOMETIME IN 2012

In a stint of only so many minutes, the planet's entire assemblage of landforms had been combed over with combustion, every expanse from slough to summit permeated through and through with Phoenix-phlegm.

While the world burned, each continent conflagrating country by country, at the epicenter of all of it was a man who had been around since a certain commencement of recorded extra-genetic existence. He was among the first of the documented mutants (not counting continuities that were retch-worthily retroactive, of course)—someone who was one of the originating soldiers of an ever-unfurling army of the uber-able. Someone who, for approximately three-eighths of a century (from 1963 to about 2001), had indisputably been a hero on almost every occasion.

But now, in this array of recent instants, this same strong, conscientious champion, known by that unforgettable-even-if-insipid susurrus Scott Summers…he had plummeted from pillar of that mutant platoon to its most prodigal, from vanquisher of those who would blemish the blue marble known as Earth to the very same heavenly body's most vicious of vandalizers.

This man who had ordinarily stood as a noble leader to so many, doing his all to slink simultaneously from the center stage, preferring a quieter sort of credit, a more muffled fashion of fanfare…he was now most certainly in the spotlight, in the searchlight of scads of supers who would bring him down most ignominiously. Everyone from the eternally-infallible Logan Howlett to fucking Bobby Drake, for Christ's sake, everyone wanted a piece of Summers, wanted to condemn him to a culvert of castigation for a crime that basically amounted, at least in part, to "wrong place, wrong time."

Specifically, due to the meddling of a pair of Men other than those branded by the X—the two innovators operating auspiciously under the aliases of Giant and Iron, respectively—a device was engineered with the aim of eliminating the oncoming Phoenix Force entirely, once encountered in outer space. When said implement was activated, however…what resulted was not a quashing of said Force, but rather a quintifurcation. In English, (a rare moment in this author's obscure storyspawning career)…there was not _one_ entity which was _subdued_ that day, but rather _five_ who were _imbued_, with the essences of said fatal firebird. Particularly it was Emma, Namor, Illyana, Peter, and last and ultimately least (in terms of magnitude of character by this point, anyway), the stalwart Scott himself.

Not so much because of fate, but really (for lack of a better concept) out of pure spite, and also due to the prime directive to pander to certain demographics of readership, Scott in the end took a fall for the other four who were endowed with the cosmic energies. As with the near-dozen years preceding, in which his persona was pooped upon to make Logan look better, or to make Hank look better, or to make Emma look better, or to make Jean look better, all of these done in a sardonic sort of contrast…here again Scott took the bullet of bastardliness to hoist the stature of others, or at least make them appear less appalling than the man himself. Of course, the treachery that Scott had perpetrated—culminating even with the killing of a certain cueballhead named Charles—it eventually occasioned Cyclops's requisite defeat, which again of course had to be done in a way that was devoid of any dignity. Bottom line, in a span of years Scott went from shepherding protector to shameful piñata, to be beaten down and broken open by an unquestionably likeable neophyte who of course totally had the tenure and the standing to pull it off.

But what if it all resolved a mite differently, as this author likes to ask often? What if a dash of decency were actually introduced into the mixture made for the coup against the Clops? In this rendition, which as with a certain earlier Fracking narrative would utterly cause the explosion of the cranium of a certain Bullpen eunuch named Bendis, the same Cyke would still fall…but this deviation regarding the discomfiture would actually involve a modicum of honor for the man, at least in the eyes of one very special, spacey woman positioned beyond the mortal plane.

(For incontrovertible proof regarding the eunuch nature of the Bendster: Spell out the first initials of Peter, Emma, Namor, Illyana, Scott...in that order...and THAT, my friends, is the main enemy to be defeated in AVX.)

As established above, here we were already to the moment at which Cyclops was singlehandedly laying waste to the entirety of the troposphere. After surviving tackles by an assiduous Nova and an arrogant Iron Man, as well as voracious claws to the face by the all-powerful prostitute known as Logan Howlett "The" Wolverine, Slim was still standing, yet still also ready to answer for all his atrocities in a manner most demoralizing.

It was the Phoenix itself, you see, which lent the ex-hero the insight—as he put everywhere from Paris to Pyongyang to the pyre—the insight that that the one pulling the strings here, and putting him down, was indeed a bald behemoth looming in the atmosphere.

However, Scott discovered that it wasn't that crack psionic named Xavier, but rather that comic poetaster named Bendis, who stood as chrome-domed doom against him.

What made Cyke relent, you see, and wish for defeat more than ever at this lethal juncture, was the realization that as long his life was written by this poetaster—a hack who made so many female characters into teeth-gritting, indestructible Sues, yet made so many males into deeply-flawed, impotent fuckups—there was no way that he, Scott Summers, could ever emerge with any saved face in the end.

So, in this reality, when the Hope and the Hex came calling for him, Cyclops just threw his hands behind his back haplessly, knowing how this was almost certainly going to go.

Expecting no reprieve whatsoever, he continued to stand there a second, waiting for the fist to fall upon his outer-space-avian-visored face.

But then…the battleground on which Scott, Wanda, and Hope all stood went all trampolinely elastic, and catapulted the trio high into the air…

…and the world all around Scott in particular, it completely went to Hell, in a seemingly literal sense in the scope of Cyke's perception…

…and a lady with follicles of fire appeared…one who was not abhorrently hateful like the alleged "Messiah," but rather one absolutely wonderful…

…one like the original, like the woman that Scott knew and always loved, and would never stop loving.

"Scott…" the shadow in scarlet began as she approached, the man whom she addressed blinking back the heat of the merciless milieu all around him as she spoke.

"Jjj…" started the dumped-upon accidental despot, Slim unable to formulate a sentence or even a syllable at this point, as overcharged with power as he was under the Bald One's thrall.

Again the incoming voice:

"Scott, this has to stop."

The words resonated deeply within him, they echoing what he felt he knew he had to do, in light of the horrors he brought upon the world. It was all on him; he had to take full responsibility, and he would.

But then, in kind, to one in the atmosphere outside this alcove of anguish, the same influence in crimson:

"And you, too, Hope…this has got to stop with you, as well."

At this the jaw of the miserable "Hail Mary" of the Avengers slackened irretrievably.

"Ex_cuse_ me?!..."

Once more, the original red, first to the treacherous tyrant: "Scott, I'll be with you in a second."

Then said red, back again to Hype..., er, Hope:

"Your leading role in this story is utterly unearned. Heroes don't go and…halitose all over everyone, the way you have. To be fair, your 'father' Cable's pulled this shit with accountability, time and again too through the years, and fuck him for that. It nonetheless doesn't 'excuse you,' just as you queried incredulously a second ago.

"Nobody likes you, Hope; Danny Rand, the Avengers…even Peter Parker down there, they were all just tolerating…all just _pretending,_ with their pleasantries."

The first host of the Phoenix then shot out, encasing both Hope and Wanda in spheres of fiery light. One more time, before imploding into the stratosphere once more, the voice.

"The truth, Hope? You suck more flavors of ass than cannibalistic cattle in a Baskin-Robbins at the bottom of Hell."

"_WHA…?!"_ was all the unbearable incandescent could manage in her small spherical containment. It was an iota of a query filled more with flabbergast than fury.

"Just step the hell off. You're going to give me and my sort-of-ex-husband a good goddamn second."

And then silence once more, leaving the trouncing tag-team of Hope Summers and the Scarlet Witch to stare at one another, dumbfounded and dismayed.

Back cozily within the brimstony attic of the atmosphere which the seniority in scarlet had set up for Scott:

"You _know it_, Scott, deep within energy-monster-manipulated mind…you know that, after everything you've been through, and all that I've been through in turn…neither of us deserved any of this."

The other, exhausted and out of breath, out of spirit in this space, he could say nothing—only listen as the definitive love of his entire existence addressed him.

"Decades upon decades of defeating evil, time and again…you and me, and the other Xers. At least thirty-seven years of you, unwaveringly and unerringly strong. Most of those years that was me, too—when I wasn't indisposed by way of being deceased, that is.

"You gotta wonder where it all went so wrong, Scott. I mean, as consistently clean and kosher and Cyclops and Marvel-Lady-Me were, all that time, it couldn't go bad, not on its own. I don't buy the whole 'Apocalypse corrupted you' crap, either.

"It's more as if…as if some miserable audience, out there, just got bored of…three dozen years of us, from '63 to the millennium, never straying from the path."  
>The crimson figure spread her arms outward with this last statement, and as Scott looked all around, he could catch sight of silhouettes surrounding him, holding the shadows of some kind of mini-magazines, then thrusting them to the ground in disgust.<p>

Then the same outlines, the same profiles of people up and walking away in a huff.

"The people of today, they want something different, Scott. Something more…unbalanced. It's a shame, really, but…for some heroes…and some heroines…to step up, an old guy's gotta take a fall."

Next, against the wall of this white-hot chamber…the shade of a contemptible she-soldier from the future

[CRRRAAACCCKKKKKK]

socking a semblance of the Clops across the kisser.

"I've noticed you've already been eyeing the exit, hon'…been looking at the face of the Room from which you first came in.

"You up and leave here…this is what you have to look forward to."

And then, the shade striking again…literally.

[CRRRAAACCCCCCKKKKKKKKKK]

With the image of Slim sliding quickly across the remainder of the white-hot face Scott was witnessing right now.

Then, for the first time, the original red drew closer, the shadiness seceding from her…

…leaving the image of the individual that Scott had always adored.

"Jeannn…"

"But I'm here to offer you an alternative."

She motioned with her right hand and the top half shunted up from Scott's aquiline iniquity that was his Phoenix visor. Expecting a belting of blast to ensue, the man battened his eyelashes instinctively down.

"No need; I've got you.

"Come on, Scott, open up them peepers…we have a big thing to discuss."

And back to blinking-intermittently-in-disbelief was Summers once again.

"What it basically comes down to is two options—and you're gonna do some hard time in either of them, so it's sort of a dilemma, or a double bind, if you will.

"One, you accept what I'm about to extend to you. In particular, I come out of my hiding…if only for a split-second…and serve you up right well, with a bit of force out there in front of the whole world to see, to bring you down and out of your Phoenix funk. You fall to Earth, get taken into custody, spend the rest of your natural life behind bars.

"Then, you come back up here, and work for me. …Not _forever,_ but for a certain time, a specified term. I show you how to _really_ use the Phoenix—which, believe me, Scott, took me years upon years in this Room to learn."

She came right up to him, her fascinating features as close and as clear as they were back when they used to share the same bed around 2003, and he would glance at her countenance and then turn and lie facing the other way; the same as it was back around 2004, when he could only stare at her, right after the climax of that false Magneto catastrophe, and fail to stop the blood gushing from her mouth and nostrils as she lay elapsing in his arms.

"I mean, look, Scott…I fucked up once with it, too…or at least a part of me did, way back when, with that whole star system what was wiped out because a certain version of me got too hungry and went on a sort of snarfing spree across a star system. It wasn't pretty…but neither is what you've been wreaking, that's for damn sure.

"Honestly, baby…you really managed to turn an entire Machine's bullpen of heroes and heroines against you. Hell—you know you done fucked up when effing _Bobby Drake_ hates you. Takes an omega-level effort to turn that Amazing Friend into an Appalled Enemy as you did, I'll tell ya."

The cosmically-contaminated Cyke didn't know what to make of all that had been occurring before him. Part of the man was still too busy trying to catch up sensorily with all that was going on, as much as all he experienced. His becoming deluged with DarkPhoenixness had made him feel so brutal yet so bewildered, like a school shooter equipped with a rocket launcher but also placed on a playground merry-go-round and spun round a hundred times over.

A meter away, Jean looked on, understood the confusion and confounding felt by the man. She knew that he might comprehend it more clearly if she set all the potential consequences out before him.

"Still with me?

"Okay. This is the most critical part.

"You reject my offer, Scott, what I'm extending to you right now—I send you right back to where you were, just a few minutes ago, out and down there in the Earthen ether. You get taken out most humiliatingly by a spoiled, entitled punkass who's basically your freaking granddaughter, and all the world sees it.

"Then you'll go straight to jail, and for quite a while, the only blonde action you'll be getting will be a gender-bent Sinister, who's been heretofore parading as the Xes' PR princess. …And no, unlike so many charter members of our mutant academy—he/she won't be trying to seduce you in the pen."

This last news came off as a great relief to Scott; he didn't want to even imagine an "Essex-y" entity…much less interact with one on any kind of intimate level.

"In short time, you'll be sprung, along with your crummy compatriots. It all happens in rather broadbrush, DC-Comics-esque strokes, I might add. Emma ends up popping out the back of a prison truck, courtesy of Magneto, as if it's the Joker freeing Harleen Quinzel."

As Cyke's memory of such universe-crossover characters was so obfuscated by the Phoenix Force, he had no idea to whom his love was referring. Regardless:

"And you'll all go on, and you'll all live crappily ever after. …I'm not even gonna bother getting into the travesty of our timetripping Sixties Selves, as I'd really prefer to keep down the White Hot Pockets I had for lunch earlier today."

(Said Pockets, parenthetically, were the only fare Jean could ever enjoy in the White Hot Room—the only human victuals available for Phoenix provender).

Jean looked down at the Earth's surface a moment. "Oh, and by the way…should you choose against what I'm offering…I may kinda sorta end up, up here, with a certain hirsute someone whom you're not too fond of. At least for a little while."

A shocked look from Scott, which his erstwhile first love could see even through his revamped visor.

"You know, Wolverine, like, 'dies' and shit supposedly, in late 2014, two years from now. It's all just a ploy for certain forces beyond us to make money off his corpse; I can't get into that right now. Free associatively, it makes me think more of a 'Loman' than a Logan…it's like what Willy Loman muses in Death of a Salesman: to paraphrase, sometimes it's like someone's worth more dead than alive.

"But, Scott, it's like…Logan dies around October 15th, 2014, at like 6am Eastern Standard Time…and then he's alive again around October 15th, 2014, at 6am Pacific Standard Time.

"Not really, but seriously he'll be back about five months later, say early 2015. For everyone from Kitty to Kal-El, Scott…if you'll allow me another quote, it's like what magicians say: Death is only an illusion. Only here, it's the most lucrative illusion imaginable."

Scott did all he could in his relative delirium to wrap his brain around all that, especially the Kal-El part, as again the Phoenix blurred his memory of any past Machine-capitalizing crossovers with the aforementioned broadbrushing-narratived DC Comics.

"Anyway, for at least those few secon…er, months that Logan's laid up in that adamantium tomb…his spirit…might do a bit of wandering. And guess whose door he's gonna knock on, first and foremost.

"Hell, I might even go down to him, Scott; I imagine it's gonna feel awwwfully cohhhzy, the two of us bundled up in that molten adamantium configuration…"

When she was through, Jean waited and continued to wait for a good spell or so, the lady understanding that this was a lot for Scott to take in. By way of a balls-shorn Bullpen, the final guy of the Phoenix Five (kind of like the "final girl" of a horror movie) had been painted into a corner such that even alternate realities reeled a male lead like him into nothing but abject defeat.

A few instants later, a nod from the latent Machine-forsaken slime that was Slim had set things into motion.

It began with the reemergence of Cyke Phoenix unto the Earthen plane, still a few miles above the ground at the point at which the man was gripped into the dizzying pocket dimension…and with Wanda and that most egregious of young gingers outside.

Then Sir Summers, at the receiving end of a potent punch by a reigning redhead. It was enough to shock any third party watching, from Cap catching sight from the surface below, to the Watcher observing from his removed vantage…

…to Hope herself, whose hands were sterilely at her sides the whole time, even she in disbelief at what just went down.

Here it was the jaunty Jeannie herself who put the evil spirit back in the bottle, her unearthly Mortal-Kombatly uppercut blocking off that shiny Shitryuken from DannyRandLand that the lesser redhead had been so raring to unleash.

And then Scott's shape shirking off into the vertical distance, his form plummeting back to the planet (with a whish of breath from Jean following him down, to cushion his fall just enough for him to end up arrested rather than erased in the end).

Then before the horrific hot-shit that was Hope could react to what the other red had done, suddenly there emerged before her an all-too-familiar pair of steel propulsion-propounding cylinders, hovering just ahead…making the maroon moppet pleased for a second…

…until she realized that said cylinders, courtesy of a certain original mutant Phoenix, weren't going to be carrying her off to a destination she exactly desired.

"Do you like to steal jetpacks, Hope?" taunted Jean nearby, as the first firebird-femme telekinetically fitted those cylinders to the other scarlet-maned lady's seat. "Like the thrill of it?

"Well, let me help out a bit. Now your Phoenix pose will be complete…as you reenact my reentry unto Earth upon the shuttle escaping the Starcore, low-budget-style. Considering that you're really nothing but a cheap, superfluous Me-ripoff, it's utterly appropriate!"

And then

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!"

as the once-most-Marvelous of Girls ignited the cylinders, causing Hope to become hurled across the horizon haunches-first, all on the juice of jetpack fuel.

Calling after the hateful heroine, the first Phoenix (well, not counting a certain Baron Zemo, speaking of the Avengers…Versus the X-Men…oh, nevermind) once more: "Oh, and K'un L'un's called, honey…they want their moves back, in addition to their reputation, after having it sullied through the patronage of the likes of you!"

Then Jean turned to Wanda, who responded by raising two hands, here not to hex but to solicit surrender.

The cosmically-ingrained Grey looked to the Witch and lifted a palm in peace, the former giving a command that was only two-thirds of Miss Maximoff's usual authoritative invocations, but twenty to thirty times more cogent in their impact:

"No more."

And with that, the purest Phoenix permitted Wanda to wind her own way down, placidly back to the planet's surface on her own mystical steam.

Just as the perspective was about to alter from the ethereal original red to either of the would-be Phoenixes she just punched or propelled away, the source of the cosmic Force, appearing from the Exosphere of a sudden, then hushing down with its brilliantly-lit wings:

"_God, Jean…I couldn't have done a better job myself."_

The voice emanating from the otherworldly, afire avian was the same as that which the Phoenix Force sported in the final episode of the TAS Dark Phoenix Saga (which this author viewed ever so reluctantly, and strictly for research purposes). You know, that mellifluous, maternal voice which caringly offered the option to the Xers of lending their life force to a downed Marvel Dame, so that she might live on again (rather than have her just die, as TAS was a Saturday-morning cartoon and all)…

…well, this same inflection was now uttering its frolic regarding the fall of not one but two of the assiest Xs to crash into the comeuppance that they so well deserved.

"_I mean, yeah,"_ continued the Phoenix Force, as Jean nodded readily along, _"like, Scott certainly had it coming; we knew that like an entire trade paperback ago._

"_But, more unpredictable than the twists and turns of the whole Slim/Emma/Namor/Peter/Illyana quintet…who ever thought that Hope would turn out to be _that_ much of a douche?!"_

A snicker from the magnificent Madame Grey. "Yeah…I'm so ashamed at the fact that that asspain even resembles me. She makes me want to grind the ginger right out of myself, I'll tell ya."

"_I know, right?! The day I designated Hope Summers to be the host…what the hell was I on?! There must have been too much starch put into the White Hot Pockets that day."_

"Hmm." Jean waved, as she made a portal by parting the air molecules before her. "Well, Force…I gotta get back on my shift. Those cosmic sock drawers won't all rearrange themselves, you know. Totes agree with you on the good riddance to bad redheads thing, in any case. Ta!"

And then Jean was departed (for now) once again.

An acknowledging nod from the Phoenix Force as its most hardworking host returned to her toil. One more time, the entity's mothering, doting drawl, regarding the contemptible would-be champion that was Hope: _"Yeah…fuck _her._"_

And then the usual singeing signature in the atmosphere as the Force fluttered formidably off.

Meanwhile, in the diametrically opposite direction from heavenward, a certain propulsion device was dashing the most persnickety person of persimmon follicles ever through so many layers of atmosphere, driving her down, down towards the planet's crust. Hope was shunted across the skyline rearfirst as the jetpack jammed onto her sacrum screamed and propelled her in reverse through the air.

Then, just as the would-be savior was about the surface of the Earth

[SHNNNNNNTTTTTT]

the machine rushing the lady along reversed itself, sending Hope the last hundred meters facedown and facefirst towards the closest, weariest wasteland available.

[PLNNNNNKKKKKK]

So it came about, then, that the glorious heroine who pettily, unprofessionally threatened everyone from Cap to Clops alike that no one "had better try and stop her" was indeed stopped at last. Hope took the earthen surface full to the face, and thus reaped literally from the land what she had sown by bullying others through breaking so many noses.

About a week thereafter, the scoop broadcasted all across the globe:

_"People of the whole world over have been talking nonstop about the image witnessed from vantages all across the planet. The sight of a red-haired woman dressed in mostly green, with a gold sash, gloves, and boots, unleashing an uppercut against a man garbed in black, gold, and red; then the male figure falling backwards to the surface of the Earth. Authorities believe that the man is Scott Summers, alias Cyclops, upon whom the entirety of a destructive entity called the Phoenix Force had ultimately been channeled. For crimes against humanity committed by Summers, which mostly involve genocide, the man has been taken into custody upon the recovery of his person from the crater he made upon impact with the earth. He is presently awaiting sentencing; authorities are considering placing him in the Vault, where the planet's most notorious villains are being housed. _

_ "In other world news: even more curiously than the fall and arrest of Cyclops, another red-haired female figure, dressed in what appear to be greenish rags, was propelled forcibly to the earth via a jetpack affixed to her lower back. This young woman, known only by the name Hope Summers with no aliases applicable, connected facefirst with the Earth's surface—and somehow survived! Even more amazingly, the only lasting injury Hope sustained in the crash was a fractured nose. She is currently being treated by mutant teammate Laurie Trommette, who promises to provide her ally premium care."_

_ (On Location, at a hospital in Wellington, New Zealand—not far from the place at which Hope impacted the planet—Laurie is at bedside near Hope: "That's it now, Miss Summers…breathe in, and then out again through the mouth. There we go.")_

_ "Health officials are certain that Hope will recover from her nasal injuries within a few years. In Wellington, this is Manoli Wetherell, reporting for National Public Radio."_

Thus it was that the one who would be Messiah Brat would end up more like Marcia Brady, considering the schnoz shattered by the football that was the Earth's floor. In another unforeseen turn of events as well, hospital brass became horrified that Hope had accidentally set herself afire, more than a few times, in the course of her efforts to heal. It must have been the residue of the Phoenix Force that she inherited up in space, and another instance of karmic comearound from the people she either solar-flared or immolated during her own stint as the spacebird. Thankfully, except for one time during a snarky visitation from Emma Frost (who had also bestowed the burn, upon Clint Barton, during the AVX conflict), in which the White Queen karmically sustained quite a bit of searing from Miss Summers…no one other than Hope herself was hurt during these incidents. These incidents rendered Hope a Pryor closer to Richard than to Madelyne, as a result. (Look up "Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling"...with all due, sincere respect to Richard Pryor, by the way; this author is not trying to make light at all of what he went through). In time, in any case, both Emma and Hope recovered fully from these literal flareups.

As for Scott, he would end up spending the remainder of his existence behind bars. Though a particular Max Magnus Erik would endeavor to spring him, this Scott stayed put, cleaving to the promise he made to the red lady who always owned his heart, despite years of denial on his part in frolicking with the whimsical White Queen.

It would come about that ten years after his arrest, Summers expired in the penitentiary from a critical case of Hepatitis X, for which there was no cure. Shortly after his burial, the man's body was brought up to that lucent chamber in the sky, whereupon that White Hot work, his empyreal apprenticeship, began under Jean's direction.

Through hard work and much repentance in that resplendent alabaster oven of a receptacle beyond space and time, Scott finally made Phoenix Partner—approximately a hundred and one thousand and ten years later. Consistent with this sexiest of binaries (101,010)—the ten ten ten making for three Xs in a row, in the most Romanesque of numerologies…Scott and Jean celebrated the anniversary with the most explicit of intimate encounters, the first of many, each of which itself lasted about one-ten-thousandth of an eon.

AFTERWORD

I've done this same kind of Afterword a few times now; I'm doing it again here in case no one has ever read my stuff before. I will NOT go on a huge, huge rant here as I did in my "Bendy Boundaries" story. I just wanted to explain a couple of things.

First, as I've said in a number of my stories before: I am very sensitive to gender relations in stories, be they comics, novels, movies, etc. I am not a fan of intergender violence usually (yes, I know, my story Feed N' Slake etc, okay); I think that violence by men against women is abominable, and a social ill to be combated. That said, I generally despise stories in which there is disproportionate violence by women against men, as I think it's hypocritical…although of course I struggle with this as well, as again Feed N' Slake. I will be the first to admit that here.

Hand in hand with this, I hate the trend, as I explained in my Afterword to my Lilly Caul story just now (Vengeance Greenes Grimes), of this one-sided bullshit where "the" hero is female and "the" villain is male; this happened in Hunger Games, it happened in the Walking Dead Governor novels, and it happened in AVX here, and it makes me angry because it's this perpetuating thing that oftentimes makes the prevailing female out to be someone who does (and can do) no wrong ever, while it makes the countervailing male to be someone who does (and can do) nothing right ever. Of course, of course, in AVX for example, it couldn't be that the final confrontation could be, say, Hope and maybe Captain America, and then Scott and Emma going down together. No: it had to be an Amazonian triple-team, really, of Hope and Wanda, and then Jean from the "Other Side" of the White Hot Room (it's possible, parenthetically, that the Jean part was just a hexed illusion by Wanda…it might be open to reinterpretation)—all against Scott, who of course is a trillion percent to blame for everything-accepting "full responsibility" in the end, even though, parenthetically, there were also Peter and Namor and Emma and Illyana who were twisted iterations of the Phoenix as well, and who were threats as well. Generally speaking, though, between the do-no-wrong female hero(ine) and then do-no-right male villain, it's all just unbalanced bullshit to me. I honestly don't believe this stance of mine is Chauvinist or MRA, either; what I'm saying is that there could and should be balance, and that it doesn't have to be the case, as it was in AVX and has been in other stories recently, that only women can do no wrong, and only men can do no right. It's just bullshit to me.

Honestly, to me, we all won't get where we want to go with gender relations in stories until there is more balance. Some people might have taken offense to the fact that Hope and Emma are on fire from the Phoenix Force in a bad way, here, if but for a few moments. …But it's okay for Emma to set Clint Barton on fire, and for Hope to at least solar-flare EVERYONE in AVX to get their attention? To me it's still unbalanced bullshit.

As I said in my Profile on here regarding this story, the purposes of this story were 1) to lessen the end-of-AVX finishing blow against Scott, who IMO should have had justice coming to him, sure-but justice with a bit more dignity involved, in light of all he's done for the Xers over the years leading RIGHT UP to the AVX crossover; 2) to reunite Scott and Jean (at least eventually...here it happens one hundred thousand years later), as they are my second-place OTP (Scott and Madelyne as my first-place one); and 3) to take Hope down a peg, as in everything I've ever read, she treats people terribly and answers for none of it (and she even ADMITS this to Laurie Trommette, via a letter, in the trade paperback of AVX Consequences).

I want to be emphatic about something here as well. I am NOT saying that Bendis is a eunuch because of the empowerment of women per se; I support women's empowerment generally. As I made the point before, in my Fracking as well as in my Amends story, I argue that his writing is contemptible and objectionable because he also makes male characters look impotent, incompetent, and just plain idiotic in the process of said female empowerment—and as earlier writers such as Nicieza or Lobdell have shown, that's completely unnecessary and inappropriate. Some people might think that the imbalance is sexier, and that balance is boring (even I can see that Scott and Jean standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the Nineties, or Havok and Polaris doing the same at that time, might not have been the most exciting), but I'd rather have that than the stories of today, wherein we have so many "teeth gritting, indestructible Sues" as I said in my story here who can do no wrong, and male characters on the other hand who fuck up left and right.

Within the next few months or so, I will be done with these stories. (Yes, some will rejoice; I understand). I just wanted to voice my frustration and outrage at what goes on in some of these issues. Hoping everyone is doing well.


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